Thursday, April 16, 2015

N is for New Coke

The history of Coca-Cola takes us all the way back to 1863, when an entrepreneur invented Coca Wine. The beverage combined wine with cocaine.

An Atlanta pharmacist began serving a beverage based on Coca Wine. In 1886, Prohibition required him to replace the wine in his drink with a syrup that later evolved to what we now know as Coca Cola.

While the formula for Coca-Cola has changed slightly over the years (especially when cocaine was prohibited in 1914), customers have grown to expect a certain taste. So imagine the surprise in 1985 when this product was introduced:

The goal was to make it more competitive by giving the product a new taste. The product was in a major slump, with its market share having dropped to 24 percent, largely due to competition from Pepsi.

In blind taste tests, New Coke overwhelmingly beat both Coke and Pepsi. Customers said they loved the sweet taste but when asked if they'd drink it if it replaced Coca-Cola, most said they would, but it would take time to get used to it. A small percentage said replacing Coke would make them angry.

Coke proceeded...and people were angry. Not just "don't buy it" angry, either. A small but very vocal group of people with a lot of free time staged boycotts against the company.

Customers flooded the company's 1-800 lines, reportedly showing the same amount of grief they'd express at the loss of a family member. Coke switched back, spinning the whole mess into a campaign stating that now they're giving Americans more choice than ever. (Classic Coke or New Coke.)

To this day, some speculate that the entire thing was just a marketing ploy to bring Coke loyalists back.

74 comments:

I think it was a marketing ploy. It got the product a ton of attention and they got to add the word classic to the label.I remember taking the Pepsi Challenge. I could always tell the difference and always picked regular Coke.

Yeah, talking to my husband, I realized I might not have been clear enough that their sales were at 24% before New Coke--but when they released Classic Coke, sales skyrocketed. I left that last part out! Although my husband pointed out that if they just wanted a marketing ploy, they probably wouldn't have done all those taste tests and market studies before releasing New Coke.

My Mom was a coke fan and she hated the change. I've always preferred Dr. Pepper, it was often my lunch in high school with a bag of peanuts poured in it... and I don't like any of the wannabe substitutes either.

We had a "Coke" room with a soft drink vending machine as well as a snack one in my high school in the 50's and if that's where the boys were hanging out for lunch instead of the cafeteria that's where us girls were.... immolating the jocks. :)

My stepdaughter says in her high school, they have a machine with diet sodas. No other sodas, just diet. They were told it's because they can't have sugar because of regulations...but diet is okay. So she's now discovered how yummy Diet Dr. Pepper is. If the world is anti-diet soda, perhaps we shouldn't be introducing our teens to it?

I don't even remember it. We never had coke except at birthday parties and often we had the supermarket own brand even then. I fell as if I missed out.TashaTasha's Thinkings | Wittegen Press | FB3X (AC)

I know--I think the year the whole Coke incident happened, I was probably drinking one soda year or something. I don't remember drinking soda until I got my first job at 16 and they let us drink all the soda we wanted for free while we were working.

I remember the whole New Coke thing and it is weird because if they wanted to change the formula to something tastier why not just do it without all the hoopla of changing the name? People probably wouldn't have even noticed, so in that way I think it was a marketing ploy for attention. I've always loved Diet Coke or Tab (also a Coke product) when I can get it. People make fun of me for drinking Tab, saying their mom or grandma always drank it. Well, yes, I'm that old haha! I think the history of Coke is fascinating. Can you imagine combining wine and cocaine??? And then taking out the wine and leaving the cocaine? Wonder what it tasted like back then, and I can imagine what kind of a buzz it gave! The wine to relax, the cocaine for energy, like taking uppers and downers in one crazy drink. Only I imagine it was very small bottles and only taken for medicinal reasons!

Good point...although from what I remember, the taste was very different? I remember saying I didn't like it, but like you said, it was probably the psychology of knowing that it was different. If no one had told me it was New Coke, I wouldn't have thought anything of it.

It was certainly a marketing ploy, but it was kind of a weird one. Back then I preferred Pepsi because it was sweeter. The New Coke campaign didn't convert me. Over the years though I began to prefer Coke and now that's mostly what I drink. I never noticed the difference between original Coke and New Coke.

I think is was a brilliant marketing ploy. No way anyone could have preferred New coke to the classic, it was more watery. Meanwhile it turns out soda is basically slow poison, as bad for your health as smoking and other drugs. It will someday be heavily taxed like other destructive addictive products.

I've not a clue. I've never liked Coke. I'm a Pepsi girl all the way. So anything Coke did I just didn't notice. None of these drinks are good for you and I only have about a half bottle a week. Too bad because I so enjoyed my Pepsi.

I took the Pepsi Challenge in a mall. I chose Pepsi. I remember New Coke. What an uproar. I have read about the original cocaine recipe many times, and have also read that it isn't true. WAS there cocaine in coke? I think I'll ask snopes.

Yeah, while I was researching this, I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the history of Coca-Cola...but I had to summarize, so a lot of it got left out, unfortunately. It's VERY interesting, but not very brief!

You're young! There was Coke up until the mid-80s. Then they introduced New Coke with the intention of phasing out the old Coke and making New Coke the standard. But the backlash resulted in two Cokes: New Coke and Classic Coke. Over time, they did away with New Coke for a while but for a long, long time, Coke still had the word Classic on the can. I believe I read in my research that they've phased out the "Classic" in recent years and now just call it Coke. Maybe they should introduce New Coke just to let younger people taste it! Although with everyone thinking soda is the equivalent of Crystal Meth, that probably won't happen.

Oh yes, all about marketing. I mean, really, they are the marketing kings of the world. Who would believe otherwise? I don't drink any soft drinks so don't know what the change in taste is like... Lisa, co-host AtoZ 2015, @ http://www.lisabuiecollard.com

Interestingly, I remember the Coca-Cola shirts everyone's wearing in that commercial. It seems the company released all of that Coca-Cola wear around the time it did its New Coke nonsense? Maybe right after, to highlight everyone's renewed excitement about the company. The funniest thing was that we all willingly wore that stuff!

That's interesting! I didn't really drink either growing up but during my teenage years, I developed a love for Mountain Dew. Then I tried Diet Dr. Pepper to lose weight and after that, Mountain Dew tasted like pure sugar to me. I still can't drink it.

I have not had coca cola since the late '80's. I was addicted to it but it was part of my undoing (I am hypoglycemic). I remember this New Coke thing and thought they were nuts. I wonder who the person was who "Invented" this-did he get fired or did he get a promotion. That may answer the marketing ploy

Oh no. Hypoglycemia is a tough one! I remember reading once that Sela Ward was PR manager for either Coke or Pepsi back in the day...she was fired when someone spotted the rival's bottle in her car, which I thought was a bit extreme. It could have belonged to one of her friends.

I have to say, those machines where you can pick your flavor of Coke are the bomb! I LOVE those things. Freestyle, I think they're called? You can have vanilla Coke, orange Coke, raspberry Coke, etc... And the flavors of lemonade are even better.

Interesting thought; it could have been a marketing ploy. Anything to keep its name out there like this certainly seems suspect for such a thing. At the time I preferred Diet Coke over Diet Pepsi :) Now I've weaned off all soda :)

I had diet coke once or twice and it really wasn't spectacular (perhaps a glass of water would have been better). It was an attempt to reach people who wanted Coke and a healthier lifestyle but didn't succeed.

I don't know if it was a ploy or not, but everyone I know despised New Coke. I think I started drinking Diet Coke in the 80's so I don't remember hating New Coke, because I didn't drink it enough to know or care. I cannot stand the taste of Pepsi. I've been drinking Diet Coke for so long that I much prefer it over Coke. I've always heard that Coke once had cocaine in it, but I never really believed it. So it is true. I bet people back then really became addicted to the beverage.

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